


change is what happens to other people

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-30
Updated: 2010-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris leaves, and comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	change is what happens to other people

Chris breaks up with Jeff over the phone. It's a hot May day in the Bahamas. It a nicely warm May day on the road from Calgary to Victoria.

There are many reasons, and none of them that Chris wants to fuck around, like he told Jeff. It's not a lie but it's not a reason either.

His life's different now, that's all, and he hasn't seen Jeff in months; they talk on the phone all the time, they tweet, they write emails - but it doesn't seem enough. And then sometimes, it's too much.

He goes on deck that night, one of the areas that's reserved for personnel; it's deserted, everyone's at the parties, dancing in clubs. He lies down on the floor, spreads his arms and legs, and stares into the clear night sky.

 

~*~

 

It doesn't hit Jeff until a good hour later, in his hotel room, eating pasta out of boxes. That's when he realizes he'll maybe never have dinner with Chris again. That they'll never laugh at the tomato sauce splattering all over the floor because they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

He doesn't finish his food. It lands in the trash. Instead, he leaves the hotel room, ignoring the looks from a few of his cast mates who're hanging out on the floors or the lobby. He goes into the next supermarket, buys a bottle of vodka, and brings it back to the hotel. It takes him all of five minutes. The numbness is gone.

He gulps down the alcohol until his throat burns and his eyes water and only stops when the nasty feeling in his chest dies down, replaced by warmth and tingles. For a while, he imagines coming back home in a few days, to their (his) apartment, trashing some of Chris' stuff; but he doesn't want to be that cliché. He gets out his laptop and puts on Grey's Anatomy instead.

He calls Meghan, and when she doesn't pick up, Elise. He's halfway through his second episode. By that time, the storylines are no longer making sense and he doesn't even know why he's calling them. Everything's great. Maybe he can go out. Party up a scene. Take home a cute guy and fuck him in their bed. A cute guy with spiky hair and a lovely smile and warm, brown eyes -

Joannie steals the spare key to his room from the reception and lets herself into his room, but by then, Jeff's already asleep.

 

~*~

 

It was a mistake to listen to the voicemail Chris realizes the moment a female voice starts screeching at him. She's calling him every name under the sun starting with 'you're a bastard asshole, Chris; I'm going to fuck you up so bad when I get my fingers on your scrawny, pathetic little neck'. It's all very cheery and uplifting.

He makes it through Meghan's message; he deletes the other twenty from various people including his own parents. Maybe he didn't think this through as well as he thought.

The thing is, he never wanted to hurt Jeff. He loves Jeff more than anything. It's just that sometimes, things change.

Chris wants to be one of those things.

 

~*~

 

The theme of the following days is consistent, if a little obvious: taking Jeff's mind off of things.

It works. They hit Victoria. Instead of living at the rink as they sometimes do, the girls tell the boys to fuck off (except Adam. Adam's allowed to come), and they rent scooters and spend the day at the beach.

They eat ice cream with sticky fingers and Joannie teases Adam about his haircut. It's a good day. It almost feels like he doesn't have a hangover at all.

The show in the evening is good. He puts all his frustration into his performance and people don't even realize. They just love him more.

It feels good to be loved.

After the show, Joannie refuses to let him go to bed on his own.

"We're going out," she says. She puts her hands on her hips and then storms his luggage. Jeff has a lot of clothes, and some are even fit for the company she wants him to keep. He ends up with eyeliner and a ton of gel in his hair. He hasn't gone out like this for years.

There's a drag show, and cute boys dancing to Lady Gaga beats with their boyfriends, bare-chested men writhing on tabletops. Jeff closes his eyes and enjoys. Life is good now. Better. It's just been a day.

There's a ten percent rule that dictates that he should be mourning for half a year. Jeff's not that guy. Jeff's the kind to get on with his life, do the best with what he's got. It worked in skating. It's the same, really. He was married to skating longer than he was almost-married to Chris.

It's not the same thing at all, but he convinces himself it is. He's still skating after all. He hasn't gone a day without talking to Chris for years. He looks towards September and tells himself to not be stupid.

 

~*~

 

The first time Jeff saw Chris, he thought he was cute, if a little young. Chris was twelve, looking like he would take on anyone who'd try and bother him. Baseball cap, big sweater, little fists clenched.

He forgot about him quickly.

The second time Jeff saw Chris, he hated him. Not for long, barely an hour, really, but there he was, trying to push his way into Jeff's little make-shift family, and that was not allowed.

But then Chris smiled a toothy smile and said, "You look like someone who'd play video games with me. I don't have any friends here yet."

Jeff felt himself melt at the smile, but also at the brutal honesty, and the challenge in the kid's eyes.

 

~*~

 

The days on the cruise are repetitive sometimes: small jobs in the kitchens, restaurants on board, in between skating, skating, skating, preparing group numbers, choreographing little moves that will be unique in every otherwise similar solo.

It's the nights that are the challenge. Chris doesn't waste time hanging on to the past. Once he figures something out, he tends to go with it. He trusts his gut. He's made the right decision, he tells himself.

He makes friends with two of the guys he hooks up with; it would be hard to avoid each other. They're on a ship. It's a huge ship, like a small town, but people know each other. There's little place for awkwardness after sex in this situation. He's a good people-reader. He avoids boys he thinks might want more.

He sleeps with a few more, and they part on good terms, but they don't have much in common and keep it at the occasional friendly greeting across the pools.

He does shots off girls' breasts, befriends one of the bartenders who mixes crazy drinks for him every night. He goes off the rails for a while until he gets a note from his supervisor. She doesn't mind her crew having fun, so when she tells him he needs to get his priorities straight he knows she's not being a hard-ass.

He ignores the calls and starts deleting text messages without reading them. He never liked Joannie much, anyway. She's an interfering cow. Meghan's not much better. He wonders why they think they'll be able to change his mind when Jeff couldn't.

No, that's not right. Jeff didn't even try. He just said, "Okay. If that's what you need." They were silent at each other for a while before Chris hung up.

It wasn't supposed to feel like he was the one getting dumped.

 

~*~

 

The Stars tour ends.

Jeff returns home. He goes back to the apartment, does laundry, cleans it from top to bottom. He puts the photographs straight, folds Chris' clothes into their proper place in the closet and pretends like he can play that guitar when all he knows are the few riffs Chris taught him before they fell all over each other to get out of their clothes. He leaves the apartment sparkling clean and goes to live with his parents for a few weeks before he starts travelling the world. There's no sense being at the apartment while Chris is not there.

His parents' reaction is a little funny. They're more openly heartbroken than he is. He didn't want to tell them, at first, a giant lump in his throat because telling them, saying it out loud, would make it real. But it is real, at least for now. And he's not going to hide it from them.

He catches his mom looking through old photo albums one evening. There are pictures of Chris with Jeff, with Meghan, with his dad, and his mom, and all of them together, from that time they went to the Smokies, and pictures of Chris' family, their joint vacation in Mexico. Jeff wonders if Chris has told his family yet. If this will change things.

When he sits down next to his mom, she seems to know exactly what he's thinking.

"They haven't been in contact with him for weeks," she tells him. "He's not answering calls or messages. They had no idea."

Jeff rubs his eyes and says, "This doesn't change anything. You guys are friends. Just because of this. Don't throw that away. I know you're planning that vacation together in summer, and it's going to be awesome. Chris and I, we'll deal. It's not like he's here, or - and I'm not either. Very much."

"We noticed that," his mom says. "There's been a lot of travelling. Maybe - maybe when you both come home in a few weeks and get together, maybe -"

"Mom," Jeff says. "Don't."

She touches his cheek and lets him wallow with her over photos, and then he tells her all about how excited he is for Japan and Korea and spending time with his friends.

It's all true.

 

~*~

 

Chris fell in love with Jeff a few days before he turned thirteen. Jeff was sixteen already, mature, perfect at everything, beautiful on the ice - and off. In the locker room, pulling a shirt over a still-wet chest from his shower. Chris saw him and knew that he would be whacking off to the image for months.

Jeff didn't want much to do with him at first. They played on Chris' gameboy sometimes when Chris brought it along, when Jeff had an hour or so after training.

It took Chris months to convince Jeff that they could be friends despite the age gap. It helped that their parents immediately hit it off, especially their moms. They were inseparable suddenly, going to the movies together, reading the same books, swapping Sunday meals once at Chris' place, once at Jeff's.

Chris wanted that with Jeff. That and touching. Fucking. Everyone in his class at school was talking about it, thinking about it all the time. A simple thought led to the dirtiest images, got him hard in his pants. Being around Jeff was both the best and worst time.

Jeff called him his adopted little brother exactly once. Chris has no idea what showed on his face when Jeff said that, but it must have been convincing, because Jeff never said it again.

It should have been a crush, it should have come and gone after a while, he should have fallen for other people - and he did, sometimes, but never so much that it would have mattered. He went out, kissed other boys and a few girls, just to try it, at skating events, or school events, and a few times at birthday parties. He waited five years for Jeff to come around.

Sometimes, Chris thinks that he should add those five years to the seven they've been together.

 

~*~

 

Chris falls for a guy in June. It's been a month since the break-up. Since then, it's like he's a different person; an orphan, maybe, with no other connection to the outside world, making his life on his own two feet. He has constructed a whole reality around himself. He hasn't talked to any of his old friends, his family only got an email assuring them he was all right, needed a bit of time.

He tells himself he's not being selfish. He's being free.

They sleep together after one of the shows Saturday evening, but instead of getting up in the morning, they spend the next day in bed. They fuck more. They exhaust themselves, they wake up, they talk. Chris finds out he's a philosophy major in college, taking a break, on a vacation to reunite with his parents. He's one of those rich kids all over TV these days, but he left that world to make his own mark.

Chris spins him a story, that story he's had in his head for a month, always wondering what it would have been like if his life had been different. He talks about growing up without parents, about the tough life, about not having anyone left outside. He can say anything, so he does. He says he's from Europe. He says he was married to a girl for years before he left her when he figured out he was gay. He says he tried the army, but it didn't work out.

It's fun. It's like living in a storybook. It makes him forget that he has a family at home, waiting to hear from him. That he left Jeff for reasons he doesn't understand.

 

~*~

 

The weeks pass in a flurry. There are always things to do; Jeff's friends are constantly around him when he's not skating in shows, and when he is, other friends are there. He still gets sad when someone asks him how Chris is doing - but it's not as bad as it was at first. He doesn't think about it, and life is good.

Evan calls him one evening. Stranger things have happened.

Evan says, "I heard about Chris. I'm sorry. For him." Jeff gets it. It cracks him up. Evan laughs a little too, and says, "So if I was to come up to Toronto for a week -"

"The invitation stands, you know that," Jeff says. He's looking forward to it.

The funny part is that Jeff hasn't talked to anyone about the break-up. Not really. Not that way, the way that gets everything out in the open, breaks the dam, painfully floods everything out and leaves behind a huge, empty space waiting to be filled with happiness. Evan sucks at the whole social etiquette, but he's always been a good listener. They drink beer, watch baseball even though Jeff is very easily bored.

After a week, Jeff feels like he's gone through a lifetime of therapy. Baseball therapy. Maybe there would be a market. It blurs the brain so much, it makes it so much easier to throw everything up.

 

~*~

 

"I always had to do all the fucking work," Chris tells Joannie one afternoon, a week before he's scheduled to go back home. A week before Jeff's birthday. They timed it like that, that Chris would be back in time to throw a huge party they would then skip to go celebrate by themselves.

Joannie is so surprised by his call that she doesn't immediately hang up on him. "What?" she just asks. "Chris?"

"He always just smiles and nods and says, 'Sure, Chris, whatever you want, Chris,' and it drives me nuts."

"What?" Joannie makes a sound, like an excuse-me, and a door slams. "You pick great times to do this."

"I don't fucking care. You're his friend, right?"

"I'm not even anywhere near him," Joannie says. "Why don't you tell Jeff this shit? I don't need your drama right now. I have my own business to take care of."

Chris wants to say 'Fuck you' and hang up on her, but he doesn't. He could have called any of Jeff's friends, but the truth is, none of them has the distance to this that he needs in order to get a clear, honest opinion. They'll all side with Jeff. He could have called any of his own friends, but they're probably all mad at him for never calling.

Joannie's a nosy, interfering cow, but she's smart and she knows them well enough never to pick sides. It's not just Jeff Chris has had a life-long relationship with.

Joannie sighs. "What were you thinking? You're such a brat, breaking his heart like that just so you can fuck around? You could have just asked if he'd be okay with that. You know how he feels about sex."

"That wasn't the point!" Chris says angrily. He's been angry the whole day. He's made the mistake to look on Jeff's twitter page, read his facebook comments, break into his email account. Jeff's passwords are a joke.

"What was the point?"

"I don't know." Chris takes a deep breath. He doesn't want to be angry. He wants to be happy. Maybe he's not as over this as he thought he was. "Is he - is he happy?"

Joannie snorts. "You're asking me that? How am I supposed to know? You know Jeff. If he wants you to think he's happy, he's going to shoot rays of sunshine out of his ass to convince you. He's not unhappy. It'll take a lot more than a broken heart to make Jeff give up on life."

Jeff loves life. It was always one of the things that made Chris love him so fiercely.

"I'm coming home in a week," he tells her.

"Good for you. We'll see each other on his birthday. I expect you to have fixed this by then. If you don't want to be with him, tell him to his face, not the way you did, you coward. He'll be your friend. He's amazing that way."

"I hate you," Chris tells her.

"I have to go. If you don't bring me a souvenir, I'll be pissed."

 

~*~

 

The first time they had sex, it was all Chris' fault.

Or Chris' accomplishment would be a better way to call it; Chris had planned the seduction down to the second, with two back-up plans.

Jeff only learned of that later. He likes to think back to it with a fond sort of amusement, with a tickle of shame because he knows he never would have done anything if Chris hadn't made the first step.

Sometimes it seems like Chris always takes that first step and Jeff only follows his lead. Jeff doesn't normally accuse himself of too little dedication, but the truth is, he isn't surprised that if it had to be broken off, it is Chris' doing.

Jeff takes life as it comes, grateful, mostly happy, never much questioning or pushing. If it comes to change, he moves with it but he doesn't propagate it. Chris is the one who brings the change. He pursued a friendship, planned the seduction, hurried their relationship on past the first awkward stages, parental words of caution and advice, dealing with the skating side of things.

It's what goes through his head when Chris shows up at their apartment. Jeff knew he was coming home. Joannie is a reliable spy, and Jeff still cannot put in words the relief that flooded him when she told him Chris wasn't gone for good. He'd been losing faith lately, the hope that he kept hidden away from everyone dwindling.

"Coffee?" Jeff asks amiably now. He's had a week to collect himself. He can do this.

It's been four months. Chris hasn't changed much, besides the tanning of his skin, the new haircut barely visible below the baseball cap he's wearing.

When Chris nods, comes inside, moves his bags and sits down, looking at Jeff like he's waiting for something, there's a maturity that wasn't there before. Like between May and September, he grew up somehow, and Jeff wasn't there to see it. That hurts.

"How are you?" Chris asks. His eyes are wide and concerned and hopeful.

"Good," Jeff says. He shouldn't be smiling, but he's good. He can take a little pain. It's nothing, in the scheme of things.

Chris' shoulders drop, maybe in relief. He's wearing a tank top that's snug against his chest. His arms are well-toned, he's been working out, keeping in shape. He's beautiful and Jeff wants to touch, kiss every inch of the saltwater skin.

"Good," Chris says. "Good, I wasn't - good. I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I should have taken time off, come here to talk instead of cutting off contact. That was idiotic."

"If it was what you needed," Jeff says.

Chris nods. "Did you miss me?" He presses his lips together like he's hiding a smile. "Do I get to ask that?"

Jeff grins. "Yeah. Of course. I'm glad to have you back."

"I don't get you," Chris tells him seriously. "Don't you even wonder why?"

Jeff's grin drops, he nods. "I wondered for a while. But then I got it."

"Really?" Chris blinks. "Because I don't."

Jeff looks surprised at that.

"No, honestly. I don't get it. I know I had to do it. But now that I'm back, I feel like an idiot. I mean, I feel like a grown-up idiot with a lot more experiences and a bag full of freedom, but that doesn't make me less of an idiot."

"Chris, we got together the moment you came of age. You've been in love with me since you were fifteen -"

"- thirteen, actually."

"Oh." That takes the wind out of Jeff's sails. "Really? You never said."

Chris shrugs. "It seemed redundant."

"Right. Thirteen? Really? You knew what you wanted at thirteen?"

"I guess you could make a case for twelve if you count that time we met at Nats -"

"Okay, stop. I feel like a pervert now for even looking at you back then."

Chris snorts. "Share your wisdom with me, oh wise one," he prompts to get Jeff back on track.

"Right. Since thirteen. Stop laughing. It's - of course you'd want to go out and make different experiences. Grow up without people taking care of you."

"If someone's taking care of someone in this relationship, it's clearly me," Chris protests. "That's not it at all."

"Maybe you just wanted to see what it's like to break up with someone. Or you got cold feet. The moms plotting and hinting at all that marriage stuff -"

"But I want to," Chris blurts. "Like. Maybe not marry. I mean. If you asked, I wouldn't say no. That's not the point. The point is I want a life with you."

"Yeah," Jeff says, and one day for sure, he will tell Chris how scared he was that he would decide he didn't want that after all. Now is not the time, he knows, so he says, "I want that too. I'm glad nothing's changed."

Chris rolls his eyes, but he catches the cue, like he always does, and drops it. There will be time for this later. Instead he says, "A lot has changed. For one, I learned a lot of new sex stuff. I'm a sex god now."

Jeff's foot hits Chris' shin when he tries a kick; it's a gentle one, full of teasing, when Jeff says, "Right. I'm getting a list, right? You have a folder? With pictures? Naked pictures?"

Chris shakes his head. "You can help me put it together later," he says. "We have a birthday party to plan."

"No, we don't," Jeff says. "I'm spending my birthday in bed. Everyone else can go see how they find someone to screw."

Chris looks at the floor for a moment, awkward and self-conscious, but then the moment's gone, and Jeff's gaze is open and loving and without reproach. Chris doesn't apologize. Maybe he will, some day. For now, he looks back and says, "Sure, Jeff. Whatever you want."

It's a payback of sorts.

 

~*~


End file.
